Recap: The DOTA 2 Shanghai Major Disaster

It’s been a rough few days for Valve and Perfect World. Since the group stages, there’s been a lot of flame coming their way for messing up the Shanghai Major so badly. The tournament has been going downhill with no bright end of the tunnel in vision. Ranging from technical difficulties, issues with production and much more, this isn’t what fans were looking forward to.

The Shanghai Major is being called ‘The Shanghai Shitshow’ by quite a few now. It all started a week ago when James ‘2GD’ Harding was fired for his inappropriate (but hilarious!) comments as he was hosting, and called an ‘ass’ publicly by Gabe Newell. At the same time, the production team for the Major, KeyTV was also fired.

You would imagine all problems with production would be sorted as the new team rolled in, but that’s far from what happened. Somehow, after the group stages the situation got worse. Starting from day 1, the opening ceremony streaming on Twitch itself was choppy and unwatchable. After that, the first game was delayed due to technical difficulties.

Once the ball started rolling, it all continued to go downhill. Players, casters, viewers and even production members started to vent on Twitter about how things were a mess not only on the frontlines but also backstage. These problems varied, including panelists not having an internet connection, VIP lounge looking like a tiny classroom, the player booths smelling of glue and not being sound-proof, and more.

Here are some of the tweets that clearly highlight how bad things got;

We were told we “couldn’t have internet” at the analyst desk. There is an ethernet jack 30 feet away from the desk. We now have internet.

The delays became an even bigger problem because of the curfew set in place at the Mercedes-Benz Arena where the Major is being held. At 10:00 PM you have to leave the stadium. This rule was set in place to prevent another huge stampede from taking place. For the live spectators, it is quite unfortunate as they paid money to buy tickets and travel to Shanghai, and they aren’t getting the full experience they deserve.

Being told that the arena will close in 90 minutes (2130 local). Games will continue with no live audience. #ShanghaiMajor

It’s been two days since most of this took place, and from what we know currently the production crew behind the scenes is staying up all night and working hard to get these problems fixed. We can already note that the booths are filled with white noise, meaning players can’t hear the casters anymore. Twitch staff is working closely with production to provide a smooth live-stream for the tournament and other minor details are being managed.

Even though the Shanghai Major is starting to get back onto its feet, it’s still far from perfect and how the event started rolling has left a salty taste in the mouths of most people. The Shanghai Major was quite unlike the almost perfect Frankfurt Major which was hosted by ESL in Frankfurt. A thing that has been disliked by the whole community alike is the fact that Valve is not communicating with the fans at all. Most of the ‘communication’ we saw in the past few days was Gabe Newell calling James an ‘ass’.

There’s nothing but a lesson for Valve from this, and hopefully once this is over, they can make the Spring Major a huge success to fade out the flaws from this one.